CAIRO - Bringing rail traffic in Lower and Upper Egypt to a complete paralysis Thursday, workers in Cairo's central railway station continued an open-end strike for the second consecutive day. "All we call for is a medical care unit for the workers or at least an ambulance. However, it seems officials in the Ministry of Transport are still dealing with workers as people from the second class," one of the protesters, mostly maintenance labourers, at the Ramsis Station in central Cairo, said. Early on Wednesday, one employee in the central station in Ramsis was injured during his work hours as the ambulance arrived one hour late, leading doctors to cut off the worker's leg, according to one worker. On the way from Benha to Cairo, four trains jammed with passengers were seen stopped as a result of the strike. "This is chaos that will lead us to stop using trains. Confidence in the railway service has dwindled," said Ahmed Elwi, one traveller who introduced himself as a small businessman. Elwi added he had to take a connecting trip to his work in Cairo after the train stopped midway. The railway workers' strike came just two weeks after protesters in the Upper Egyptian city of Qena blocked the rail traffic for several day over the appointment of a Coptic police general as a governor.
